ursula k leguin the ones who walk away from omelas

After all, the knowledge of the suffering child is what allows the people of Omelas to appreciate everything good in their city.

Although the knowledge initially disgusts most of them, almost all come to terms with the child’s tortured existence as a necessary evil, and eventually manage to live guiltless lives despite the child’s suffering. Most citizens learn of the child between the ages of eight and twelve. In fact, everything good in Omelas depends on this child’s continual suffering, such that setting the child free or even saying so much as a kind word to it would destroy the entire city’s happiness. The narrator explains that every citizen of Omelas knows of the child’s existence. Occasionally people come to see the child, but they never interact with it, despite its desperate pleas for freedom. The child’s living conditions are appalling: it lives in its own excrement, frightened, malnourished, abused, and neglected.

While the city of Omelas revels, one child is locked in a windowless room. In a final attempt to convince their audience, the narrator reveals an important detail about Omelas. Still, the narrator is uncertain if the audience believes in Omelas. The narrator tells the audience that the Festival of Summer has now truly begun. The crowd gathers around the racecourse as the competing children organize at the starting line, gently tending to their horses.

The narrator suggests that the audience fill in the details for themselves-whatever they need to make Omelas believable to them personally, so long as the citizens experience contentment without guilt.īack at the Festival of Summer, children ready their horses for the race. The narrator laments the difficulty of describing Omelas and acknowledges that it’s difficult for the audience to imagine an advanced society in which everyone is happy. The narrator points out that humans have the “bad habit” of considering suffering to be more complicated and interesting than contentment, but that this is just a harmful myth our society perpetuates. The Narrator pauses from describing the scene to clear any possible misconceptions they suspect the audience might have about Omelas-most importantly, that the citizens of Omelas are not simple-minded just because they are joyful.

Bells ring, children play, and adults dance. The city of Omelas is celebrating the Festival of Summer.

Ursula k leguin the ones who walk away from omelas